Leaving Cecil Street

by Diane McKinney-Whetstone

  SHAY PASTED HERSELF at the window, her excitement building as she watched the back door of the cab edge open. Alberta got out first, Shay knew it was her as soon as her foot inched through the cab door, the telling piece of drab taffeta material that almost met her shoe. When Alberta was all the way out of the cab, she stood there with her hand out waiting for the cabdriver to give her change, and at first Shay’s stomach started pushing up into her throat because it didn’t seem as if anybody else was in the cab. Until the cabdriver, a wrinkled-looking man, walked around to the back passenger side and opened the door.

  “Ooh, Neet, Neet,” Shay said to herself and to the wide-open Venetian blinds at the living-room window, “if you only knew how much I’ve missed you.” She bounced in front of the window as she watched the figure emerge from the back of the cab. She could no longer keep her excitement coiled in her muscles and now she was like a Slinky toy just loose and all over the place. Now she was at the front door and now she had the door open and now she was calling out to Neet. “Neet, Neet, welcome home,” she said, trying not to sound too jovial out of respect for the circumstances, but jovial nonetheless just to know that Neet was really living and breathing. Had had the thought many times over the past week that Neet had died, that they’d kept it from her until they could figure out a soft way to tell her. Now her stomach did inch up into her throat because she was looking at Neet, seeing her. “My God, Neet,” she whispered, “what’s going on with you, my God.”

  It wasn’t Neet’s apparent frailness that Shay could see in the suddenly angled cheekbones that used to be much more subtle, nor was it the way her complexion seemed washed out to a shade that was more blanched than its usual coloring, which was a Crayola yellow with a hint of red. It wasn’t even the long, shapeless dress that matched in style the one Alberta wore, nor was it the hat, a black felt number with netting that reached down to her eyebrows, the kind Alberta often wore to church and that would have Neet proclaiming to Shay that no matter what, she’d go to church, she’d dress like her mother insisted, unless she could find a way not to, she’d appear to be holy whenever she absolutely had to, she’d toe the line just to keep the peace, but no way, absolutely no way was she wearing that stupid little hat. And yet, disturbing as the hat was now, propped on Neet’s head, that wasn’t the worst of what Shay saw as she stood on the porch, barefoot, with her arms folded up across her chest. The worst of it was the way Neet carried herself. Back straighter than Shay had ever seen it especially when she was forced to wear her holy clothes. Shay knew that Neet so hated to be seen like that and yet the way she held herself right now, it was as if she was proud of her holy deportment. She walked with a stiffness, as if her insides would not be contained if she allowed herself to take a step without having first given it careful consideration. But mostly it was Neet’s eyes that made Shay, standing at the edge of her porch, stifle a scream, because as Neet got closer and closer as she approached her steps, she looked over at Shay’s house, right there into Shay’s face, must have known how anxious Shay would be for her to get home, and there were Neet’s eyes, soft brown like always but also hauntingly blank, like Shay had never seen them, like Alberta’s eyes, my God, they were Alberta’s eyes.

  She tried to tell herself that she was wrong as Neet reached her porch and didn’t even acknowledge that she was standing there, tried to convince herself that this was all a part of Neet’s holy sham. But she knew Neet too well. There should have been a sign reassuring Shay that Neet had just taken her sham to a new level. Traumatized though Neet was, Shay should have seen a glimmer, a milder version of the play behind Neet’s eyes that Shay could always pick up when Neet walked alongside her mother and she’d look at Shay as they passed and would allow the slightest twinkle to traipse across her eyes, which let Shay know that they were still on for the town-hall dance, or the movie, or the skating party, the arcade, the basketball game; that as soon as she could circumvent the dictates of this revival, or prayer meeting, or funeral, or special-call service, she’d be back. Have her change of clothes and her Kool filter tips ready because she’d be back. Shay would feel a coating of warm relief spread over her because of that suppressed fear that one day Neet might really catch fire for her mother’s crazy religion. It appeared now that that very thing had happened, that this sanctified demeanor had not been forced on Neet. Now, this was who Neet truly was. And like Neet’s botched abortion, Shay claimed responsibility for this too; it was her fault, hers. There it was, the guilt had broken through the dam of her father’s good reasoning and was now soaking her up from the inside. It was no use, in Shay’s mind. if Neet had really converted, she had carved out a joyless hell of a life for herself. Joyless. And Shay was drowning in guilt over this too.

  LOUISE WAS CONFUSED by Shay’s new reluctance to go next door. “What is it? Is it the cake?” she asked her.

  “No, Mommy, the cake is perfect,” Shay sighed more than said.

  “And the bouquet you put together, now that’s really perfect,” Louise said, feigning cheeriness because really she felt so helpless and fought back her own tears as she watched Shay descending into herself again.

  “Maybe tomorrow, Mommy. The cake will keep, won’t it? Maybe we’ll go over there tomorrow.”

  Louise didn’t press the matter, thinking it was better not to force Shay. Shay had to be ready emotionally, Louise told herself, the whole time wishing that Joe was home because Shay really needed him right now to help her work through this. Where the hell was he anyhow, as late as it was getting. Off work since four this afternoon.

  Joe got home around nine that Saturday. “At the barber’s,” he said to what looked like an accusation getting ready to pounce from Louise’s mouth, the way her mouth was set right then, but it could just be all those missing teeth, he told himself. “We had such a good rap session going about how things might have turned out had Martin and Malcolm come together. Very provocative talk we had going, Louise.” He said this with such sincerity that it didn’t even feel like a lie.

  The barbershop part was true enough, he had in fact gone. Though he’d spent the bulk of the time in the lavishly furnished apartment upstairs that Tim kept above the shop. Nathina was always on her husband to rent out the apartment. Tim told her he was trying to rent it out but first he’d have to get rid of the rats up there. She’d ask him why no one else on the block had rats, mice maybe, but not rats. He said that the site where the shop sat must have been a rat breeding ground years ago. Told her there were rats in the shop too, they just didn’t come out when people were around. Offered to take her down there in the middle of the night if she didn’t believe him. She didn’t totally believe him, but she believed him enough not to test his story.

  There were of course no rats, not the four-legged kind anyhow, because Tim used the apartment for the pleasure takings of his married customers. People from as far away as Southwest and North Philly tipped him heavily for the price of a haircut and a few hours upstairs. Prevented them from having to lie to their wives or girlfriends when they returned home and said they’d been at the barber’s. The Cecil Street men rarely took advantage of this amenity other than using it for bachelor parties or smokers. Too close to home to be using if they were running around. “Like shitting where you eat, huh?” Tim would muse when he’d offered it in the past and they’d declined.

  But Joe had been up in Tim’s apartment earlier. Not with Valadean though. He’d been with Valadean the afternoon before at the Red Moon Hotel. Though he’d told himself that he wasn’t going to see her again, it just wasn’t prudent with her living across the street, he’d seen her again every other day since the tragedy with Neet last week. Valadean was such a welcome, willing distraction to the heavy mood on the block, the sadness that thickened the closer and closer he got to his house. Could hardly get through his door because of the way the sadness seemed to coalesce there. He could laugh with Valadean and not feel guilty for laughing since she wasn’t emotionally tied to the block. Yesterday the
y’d tickled each other under the arms and chins and wherever else they were ticklish until they were both hysterical. So freeing to laugh out loud, with abandon like that. Then they’d mixed pleasures in ways he hadn’t done since he was a much younger man. He decided then that he would see Valadean again and again, as often as he wanted to, as often as he could without getting caught. Felt a defiance brewing in him. The defiance egged him on to ask Tim about his rat problem, the code the men used when referring to the apartment over the shop. Joe then pulled his horn from the back of the closet in the living room, where he’d slid it two weeks before. Spent this Saturday from the time he’d gotten off from work until now with his horn. He’d put it together and taken it apart; he’d cleaned it; shined it; sat it on the heart-shaped velvet couch and stared at it. He didn’t put it to his lips though, not yet. Afraid of what would happen once he put it to his lips and transformed breath into sound again. Afraid of how he would feel, afraid of what he’d do after that.

  “Yeah, baby,” he said to Louise, feeling truly sincere as he said it, “I spent all afternoon until tonight down at Tim’s.”

  “And how about Daddy’s Girl?” He didn’t miss a beat as he turned his sincerity on Shay where she sat so listlessly staring out of the window. “Did you have a nice visit with Neet, how she doing anyhow?”

  When Shay said that they hadn’t gone, that she had changed her mind, figured it was better to give Neet a little time at home first, Joe looked at Louise, asked Louise with his face what was going on with Shay. Louise hunched her shoulders, indicating that she couldn’t figure it out either. Joe took over then. He insisted to Shay that he himself hadn’t been able to even begin to move on and really get plain with what had happened to his friend until he’d stood over his buddy’s hospital bed and watched the blankness in his eyes. “He didn’t even recognize me, Shaylala, and at the same time it was as if he was looking right through me, right to my soul. I still get chills when I think about it. Mnh.” He stopped talking then and both Shay and Louise fell silent, out of respect for the pain he was obviously remembering and, from the look on his face, feeling all over again. He shook himself back, then looked at Shay. “What do you say, Daddy’s Girl, you ready?”

  “But what if she doesn’t want to see me? What if she’s mad?” Shay whined.

  “So she won’t want to see you. So she’ll be mad. Better that you go over there and Neet tell you to go f yourself than avoid that reaction by not going. You can’t control how you’re received, but you do need to go.” He took her by the hand. “Come on, get yourself together,” he said. “We going over there right now.”

  Louise hurriedly wrapped the cake in Saran Wrap, grateful that she was off the hook about setting foot in Alberta’s house. She’d fretted herself over the possibility of a confrontation with Alberta, didn’t know how she’d handle one either; it certainly wouldn’t help Neet’s condition to be forced to be privy to a bunch of hollering and cursing between two grown women. Not that Alberta would probably curse, but Louise knew that she surely would if the woman came off at her wrong, or especially Shay, she better not say shit to Shay, Louise had been thinking, and dreading since she’d promised Shay she’d go over there with her to welcome Neet back home. But now a confrontation was much less likely man to woman, as it would be now with Joe going instead of her.

  She pushed the bouquet in Joe’s hands and when Shay whispered that she’d made it for Neet, Joe said, “Well, why don’t we give these to the mother? Nothing disarms an angry woman like a pretty vase filled with flowers.”

  “Well, why the hell you come home empty-handed, then, Negro?” Louise said to his back as she flicked on the porch light and watched Joe and Shay walk across the porch and then climb over the banister to go next door.

  Chapter 11

  ALBERTA WAS IN Neet’s room when the doorbell rang. She was putting her hand to Neet’s forehead, checking for a fever the way she’d done every hour since Neet had come home. She listened to Neet’s breaths come in long whispers and was relieved that Neet seemed to be in a settled stage of sleep. It was easy for Alberta to look at Neet now under the soft lamplight coming from the bedside table, Neet’s eyes closed now, so at least it didn’t hurt Alberta the way it did sometimes when she’d look at Neet and see her own mother’s eyes looking back at her. Deucie’s eyes. That terrified her, the way she’d been raised on the stories about her mother, Pat’s stories. Whenever the dining room got too quiet at Pat’s speakeasy bar and Pat needed a good story to get things lively, to keep her clientele drinking and buying, she’d start in on Deucie. She’d say that Deucie was half wolf, half human and had tried to bite Alberta’s head off when she was born because she didn’t like her scent. “Look at her forehead if you don’t believe me,” she’d say. “They committed her ass after she tried to bite the child’s head off.” Pat’s stories would grow more and more outrageous, until she was saying that Deucie had claws instead of nails and had been spotted running naked on all fours through Black Road, in Fairmount Park. Alberta’s chest would cave in on itself when she’d hear those stories.

  Now she jumped at the sound of the doorbell. She knew who it was. Who else would lay on the doorbell at nine o’clock at night knowing that Neet had just been discharged from the hospital and was probably asleep. Such insensitivity they had. Shay and her mother, the whole block filled with people just like them. She’d hear Louise at night when she was entertaining women from the block in her kitchen. The way they’d talk about her at night from that bright yellow kitchen unaware that Alberta was out there on her steps hidden by the night, or that Louise’s kitchen window was open, or that their voices carried so well on a summer breeze. The names she’d been called by them. Mean, just mean, fanatical, spiteful, hateful, pseudosanctified, mean, just mean. And then the way they tore down her church with their venomous words. She tried not to let it penetrate, tried to keep her skin tough. But she was still mostly a sensitive woman; no matter the dark, thick clothes she wore, their insults managed to wrangle on through anyhow and slice away at her overly delicate skin. She started to ignore their ringing of her doorbell right now, but decided they wouldn’t leave without some sort of a response from her even if it was just to open the door so she could slam it in their faces.

  SHAY AND JOE stiffened when they saw Alberta’s door inch open and her face appear in the crack of the opening. Shay’s breath caught in her throat so that a gaglike sound came out instead of hello. Joe wasn’t much better, he was breathing hard and when he said, “Good evening, Alberta,” it sounded more like a gasp.

  “I guess you here to see Neet,” she said as she inched the door to all the way open. She didn’t know what made her open the door all the way like that, had planned to tell them that Neet wasn’t up for visitors. Period. Maybe it was the sight of the bouquet the father held—she hadn’t expected to see the father, had expected to see Louise—or maybe it was the timidity that was so unusual in Shay’s eyes. Whatever it was, it propelled her to open the door all the way and invite them to step inside.

  Shay and Joe almost tripped over each other and were lodged together in the doorway for some uncomfortable seconds as they hesitated and then started into the vestibule at the same time, and then stopped at the same time to let the other go through, both so surprised to be invited in so easily like that.

  “Uh, yes, we did come to see about Neet, but we also came to see about you,” Joe said, his breathing more under control as he half pushed Shay to go first and then followed her into the vestibule and handed Alberta the bouquet.

  “I haven’t suffered like my daughter has suffered, like so many should suffer but for whatever reasons are spared, but I do thank you just the same, for the flowers,” Alberta said as she looked up at Joe and their eyes met in the small, dark vestibule that had taken on the odd mix of the heavy, sweet aroma of the flowers and the buttery chocolate scent wafting from the cake and Joe concentrated on the smells to take the edge off the coldness in Alberta’s eyes, plus someth
ing about the way her face looked in the dark vestibule was disturbing. Alberta turned then and went into the living room and Joe nudged Shay to follow.

  The lights were dimmed and the room was sparsely fur-nished, a normal living room. If Joe believed the rumors kept going by people like Johnetta, he guessed he should have expected candles and oils, or some kind of altar he’d have to bow before. But his point of view was confirmed and this was a normal enough living room with a couch and a coffee table and two chairs catty-corner at the window. Neutral walls with a smattering of framed pictures of Neet at various ages. No other pictures though. None of Alberta, no other family members, not even a picture of a white Jesus with wavy blond hair and piercing blue eyes looking down from the center of a puffy cloud. Not even a Bible on the coffee table, he noticed now. He shifted his weight from foot to foot and tried to settle himself down as Shay handed the cake to Alberta.

  “This will only end up in the trash, I assure you. She’s not eating a thing. Not a thing,” Alberta said as she took the cake without looking at Shay, looked only at the cake as she shook her head back and forth. “Poor child is hardly even opening her mouth to talk. Most she’s doing, which I’m very glad about, is praying. Been praying nonstop since this happened. If good always follows bad, then at least the fact that she’s praying much more is the good coming from this whole torture.”

  “Well, um, Miss Alberta,” Shay said, grasping for a clear, strong voice. “I guess we could take it back home if it’s just going in the trash.”

  “We’ll do no such thing,” Joe interrupted.

  “But Mommy worked on that cake all afternoon. I hate to see it end up in the trash.” Shay directed her words to her father.